


The Rest of Our Lives

by hopeless_eccentric



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Adoption, Breakfast in Bed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, Married Couple, Other, Peter Nureyev Can't Cook, Surprises, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but hes trying, i cried writing this because it was so sweet, thats not even a lie i happy cried. at my own work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29414928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: They had created the tightest, most grounded aliases to date. They had baby-proofed the house for a child who hadn’t been born yet. They had walked through some of the most painful and open conversations of their lives, just to ensure that regardless of their airtight paperwork, they could look one another in the eye and mean it when they said they were ready.Juno had a feeling a part of him would never feel prepared. However, that same part also told him that one day, Nureyev was going to wake up and realize none of this was worth it. That part hadn’t been right once in the half decade since their wedding.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 22
Kudos: 80
Collections: TPP Valentine's Exchange





	The Rest of Our Lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thiefwithoutaname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiefwithoutaname/gifts).



> oh man. ohhhhhhh man. ill admit to getting a little teary when i wrote it. it's. hoo man. it's a sweet one. im not a happy crier but yeehaw
> 
> Content warning for food, very loose allusions to past shitty parenting (it's more just understood that it sucked without going into detail, this is meant to be soft)

Juno woke to an empty bed, though he did so without a care in the world. 

He could have laid in that position for the rest of his life as the scent and warmth and imprint of his husband still haunted the sheets, the mattress sinking in sympathy of the pleasantly tired ache in his bones. He knew his joints would begin to crack the moment he got up and he would need to reach for his eyepatch and comms and clothes, but for the time being, he let out a sigh into the pillow and said his thanks that he didn’t need an alarm that morning.

He didn’t particularly feel like raising his head or looking around, but his other senses told him enough. He could just make out the white glow of morning light from the window, albeit muffled by curtains, while he could hear and smell Nureyev making breakfast in the kitchen.

A lazy smile slid its way across Juno’s face. Nureyev had recently figured out approximately two recipes which he could, if not make to mastery, handle. He watched Juno make them a thousand times and once or twice, managed to do so without draping his arms over his wife’s shoulders or tugging him into a kiss or a twirl while dinner burned on the stove behind them.

Ever since they’d put in their paperwork for the adoption, Nureyev had been a lot more adamant about learning those things his life of crime had never allowed him to master. He had also been a lot more cheerful about the entire learning process in general, which he had previously seemed to loathe.

Nureyev’s abysmal wielding of a frying pan had been the least of their issues in the long, multi-year road to even considering kids. Juno wished the amount of reading and research and therapy he had dragged himself through just to convince himself he wasn’t doomed to turn into his mother could be fixed with a few lessons and viewings of a tutorial, though not all things were as easy as mastering scrambled eggs.

They had created the tightest, most grounded aliases to date. They had baby-proofed the house for a child who hadn’t even been born yet. They had walked through some of the most painful and open conversations of their lives, just to ensure that regardless of their airtight paperwork, they could look one another in the eye and mean it when they said they were ready.

Juno had a feeling a part of him would never feel prepared. However, that same part also told him that one day, Nureyev was going to wake up and realize none of this was worth it. That part hadn’t been right once in the half decade since their wedding.

For the time being, Juno pushed all thoughts of the future, soft and terrifying in equal measure, away. Nothing had been finalized. No biological parents or representatives had done anything more than look over their paperwork. He didn’t need to dwell on either worry or excitement until some kind of confirmation came by way of his comms.

Juno had never been particularly good at pushing thoughts away, however, so with his eyes still closed, he slapped a hand down onto the nightstand and groped blindly for the piece of metal.

“Honey?” He called upon feeling no more than an alarm clock he never plugged in.

“Yes, dear?” Nureyev called back, pausing the music he had set his cooking to the tune of.

“Where are my comms?”

Nureyev paused for just a moment too long for Juno not to get suspicious.

“You must have left them plugged in by the couch last night,” he returned, voice just a little too flat. 

With the heady warmth of the morning beginning to fade, Juno finally managed to sit up, slide on the three-eyed bunny slippers Nureyev had bought him for his last birthday, and trudge to the kitchen. 

He announced himself with a yawn that made something in Nureyev’s face soften to such a degree that Juno thought his knees were going to go weak right in the middle of the kitchen. Thankfully, Peter swept in to save the day, pulling him into a kiss and a half embrace that, however familiar, never failed to make Juno’s heart skip an adoring beat in his chest.

Juno could’ve stood there forever, Nureyev’s hands on his waist and his face blooming into one of those private, unpracticed smiles that Juno knew he alone saw. He caught it most often out of the corner of his eye or in the reflection in the microwave when Peter tucked his chin atop Juno’s shoulder halfway through a stir fry and wrapped his arms around his waist. As much as he adored the expression for being so private that even he barely saw it in full, he couldn’t help the warm twinge in his chest upon seeing the expression bared so plainly.

Nureyev’s genuine smile was one of those parts of himself he liked to keep neatly filed away, so his active effort to show it more often made it all the sweeter.

Juno would have appreciated it for a moment longer had Nureyev not kissed the next yawn from his lips, ignoring the sound of toast going off nearby. Toast, it seemed, could take its turn. Juno didn’t exactly mind getting such tender preferential treatment, so he made no move to voice his complaints, merely letting his embrace drag around Peter’s waist as he continued going about the kitchen with moderate success.

“Dear,” Nureyev pretended to complain, “I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”

“Any reason?” Juno smiled into his chest while Peter reached over him for the salt.

“I’m just sorry you can’t find your comms, that’s all,” Nureyev audibly grinned. “I knew I married a detective, but I didn’t know he’d be so suspicious about my every move.”

“What can I say, Nureyev?” Juno snorted. “You’re a wanted criminal.”

“So are you, love.”

“You’re trying to surprise me with something,” Juno insisted.

“Yes,” Nureyev huffed, though not without amusement in his voice. “Breakfast in bed. And I’m actively failing.”

“Fine,” Juno groaned, and as if it were the most difficult three steps he had taken in his entire life, peeled himself out of that warm and gentle embrace around Nureyev, “I’ll just go back to bed and say I never saw anything.”

“I’m glad to see we could come to a peaceful resolution,” Peter chuckled.

Peter Nureyev was a hell of a liar when he wanted to be. With the way his lips quirked, as if fighting the broadening of a smile that was already far too big for what should have been a simple, though not unpleasant, morning, Juno suspected there was a very small part of Nureyev that wanted to keep that secret at all.

Juno had known himself long enough to know he couldn’t leave well enough alone, and he had known Nureyev long enough to know exactly which buttons to push.

“I’ll go back to bed under one condition,” he began slowly, crossing one ankle over the other in a lean against the counter.

“And what’s that?”

“You tell me where you put my comms,” Juno continued.

“Would you believe me if I told you it’s a part of the surprise?” Nureyev huffed, glancing up from the toast and butter.

“Maybe. What could I learn from my comms that would give it away?”

Nureyev rolled his eyes.

“Is it a date I’d forget?” Juno pressed. “Shit, it’s not the anniversary of when we met, is it?”

“Love,” Nureyev began impatiently, “I’m trying to make you breakfast—something we both know I struggle with greatly—and you’re standing here interrogating me.”

“Fine, fine, okay, whatever,” Juno chuckled. “I’ll just go back to bed and sit there in dead silence until you tell me where my comms are.”

“I would suggest then, that you stay here with me until I can tell you to go to the other room to be surprised or you read one of those books you always buy and never touch,” Nureyev teased.

“Hey, I’m a busy guy,” Juno protested.

Nureyev rolled his eyes fondly.

“You’re retired.”

“Whatever,” he huffed. “So is breakfast almost ready?”

“Dear,” Nureyev warned.

“Sorry, sorry,” Juno laughed. “I’ll go back to bed and mourn your absence. A day without you is a year, my love, and all that...whatever. You filthy heartbreaker.”

“Well now you’re just making fun of me,” Nureyev pretended to be offended, though the reflection of his grin in the screen of the microwave above the stove betrayed him. “Go along now. Tuck yourself in and pretend you never tried to interrupt either of your surprises.”

“No goodnight kiss?” Juno teased, raising his hands in surrender when Nureyev turned around and shot him the loveliest glare he had ever seen. “Okay, okay, I’ll go back to bed.”

“Sleep soundly, my dear detective,” Nureyev replied flatly, though his voice shook with the effort of restraining a laugh.

Juno didn’t drag himself back off to bed so much as he flopped atop the comforter, crossed his ankles, and stretched. He had a sneaking suspicion Nureyev had only sent him off when breakfast was nearly done so that the surprise didn’t have to hang in the air any longer than necessary, for he had hardly gotten comfortable before Peter returned with a pair of trays and a sweet smile set upon his face like a gemstone within a crown.

“Hey honey,” Juno grinned.

Nureyev’s response was a quick peck to the lips.

“Good morning, love,” he returned, precariously climbing into bed at Juno’s side and leaning against him. Juno would have protested his arm being trapped if Nureyev hadn’t pressed a kiss to his cheek that made his head fill with static and his chest fill with warmth. “Did you sleep well?”

Juno snorted.

“So you’re really ignoring that I’ve been awake for—”

Nureyev paused him by laying a firm hand upon his shoulder.

“Yes.”

They met eyes for a second before mutually bursting out into laughter, wheezing out the noises and both pretending they hadn’t heard Nureyev snort until Peter’s head had buried itself in Juno’s shoulder and Juno started worrying his eggs would get cold. 

Juno, unfortunately, departed from Nureyev’s touch with a kiss to his head and turned his attention to a plate of breakfast that didn’t actually look half bad.

“Did you just kiss my head?” Nureyev chuckled as Juno started in on his breakfast.

“What else was I supposed to do?” Juno shrugged. “It’s a good head.”

“Have I told you lately how in love with you I am?”

“Not lately enough,” Juno grinned.

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to say it again.”

Their subsequent silence was a comfortable, albeit brief one. As much as Juno wanted to enjoy the food, the surprise still buzzed around the air like a mosquito, taunting at his ears. The fact that he had yet to solve the mystery was worst of all, though he supposed he could be forgiven for taking a brief break from being the world’s most decent detective if it meant spending a lazy morning eating breakfast in bed with his husband.

Eventually, when he could stand the buzzing no longer, Juno took a swat at that insect of a topic.

“So what’s the surprise?” He asked, feeling blunt.

Nureyev chuckled.

“After breakfast, dear,” he insisted.

“Nureyev,” Juno groaned.

“I didn’t bring your comms with me, and the surprise is on there,” Peter insisted.

“If I forgot an important anniversary—”

“You didn’t forget anything, love,” Nureyev smiled, pressing a kiss to Juno’s knit brow. “Now, if you’re done with your tray, I’ll take it.”

“And then you’ll tell me?”

“And then I’ll tell you,” Nureyev confirmed.

If Juno had thought Nureyev all too keen to ruin his own surprise with just how badly he wanted to let the news spill earlier, it had nothing in comparison to the half jog at which he left the room and the near-sprint at which he returned.

“Hey, easy there,” Juno chuckled when Nureyev leapt back to his side, pressing the comms into his hands. “Where was it?”

“By the couch, like I said,” Nureyev smiled. “Check your inbox.”

Juno raised an eyebrow, but guided himself to the inbox nonetheless. 

“Click on the most recent one,” Nureyev added.

“I know how to open my messages, Nureyev,” Juno teased, opening his mouth to continue when his eye fell upon the message and his hand fell over his mouth.

“Juno,” Nureyev grinned, seemingly unable to find anything else to say for a long moment in which he merely let that deliriously happy expression overtake his face, his eyes flickering between Juno and the comms and back again until Juno seized him in a hug.

“Nureyev, I—” Juno tried and failed to choke out, his voice breaking somewhere between a delighted laugh and the stupid tears that liked to show up whenever he got remotely sentimental.

“We’re going to be parents,” Nureyev announced, though it was muffled into the shoulder of Juno’s sleep shirt, a number that had, at one point or another, probably been Peter’s. “We’re going to be parents. You and I. We’re going to have a baby girl, and—“

“Breathe, Nureyev,” Juno chuckled, though with something hot and wet running down his cheek that definitely wasn’t a tear, he knew he didn’t have much room to talk.

“You’re going to be such a good mother, you know that, right?” Nureyev managed to raise his head to breathe, though his heady smile faltered at the sight of Juno’s face. “Juno, are you—”

“Shut up,” Juno choked out. “I’m not crying, you’re crying.”

“Dear, are you alright?”

Juno managed a nod.

“I’m good,” he grinned. “I’m really, really good.”

Peter Nureyev seemed to be the kind of gentleman who always had the right thing to say. He could weave stories from air and make them seem as potent as fact, while his charm and charisma knew no bounds. However, he seemed to be reduced to merely shaking his head in giddy disbelief and murmuring snippets of delight into their crushing hug. Juno couldn’t blame him. Usually, at times when emotion welled in his throat and behind his eyes, he relied on Nureyev to do the talking for him.

“I’m going to be a dad,” Nureyev seemed to realize at some point, his gaze far off while Juno, who had rearranged the hug somewhat, looked up at him from his chest.

“And a damn good one too,” Juno reminded him. “Was it me, the therapist, or the cat that convinced you?”

“The cat,” Nureyev chuckled, “though I’m not sure I’ll be that good of a parent at all if I allow you to let that mouth of yours loose around the baby.”

“I guess I’m gonna have to teach her all the cuss words I know in secret.”

“Juno, you would never!” Nureyev pretended to be aghast.

“You never know,” Juno laughed, wrapping himself tighter around Nureyev despite his teasing tone. “Honey, can I be honest with you for a second?”

“I was hoping you’d always be honest with me.”

“You know what I mean,” Juno huffed, his eye roll broken off when Peter kissed the top of his head.

“Of course, love.”

“Can I let you in on a little secret?” Juno asked. “I think you’re gonna be a really good dad.”

“The father of your daughter,” Nureyev breathed, as if the thought were too much for a coherent sentence. Juno caught the rest of his words in a brief kiss anyway.

“Yeah,” Juno grinned, “and I think I might not be a half bad mom either.”

Nureyev opened his mouth to tease Juno for his understatement, but the expression softened. The conversation about Juno’s own reservations had been a well-trodden road by then. The fact of the matter was that the reassurance was now an easy one, as it had been a common promise between the two of them, far before they had ever dreamed of agonizing over aliases and false IDs and paperwork.

“I think you’ll be excellent,” Nureyev smiled.

“You know,” Juno began, realizing and not particularly caring that his face had gone sore from smiling. “I thought I’d be a lot more scared than this. I thought I’d be shaking in my shoes if I found out the paperwork went through and everything, but—honest to God, I’m excited. Being a parent wasn’t ever something I thought I wanted, but the idea of being a parent with you—”

Juno ran out of words, though Nureyev didn’t let the silence hang in the air for long.

“I’m proud of you,” Nureyev murmured, halfway through a kiss into his hair. “Juno, dear, how long has it been since I’ve told you just how much I’m in love with you?”

“Minutes,” Juno snorted.

“Then allow me to rectify such a heinous crime,” Nureyev chuckled, dragging him up into a kiss, sweet and chaste and broken by both of their relentless and poorly timed smiles.

Juno could have spent the rest of his life right there, with Peter Nureyev grinning and holding back giddy tears in his arms. He could have spent every day with pet names in his hair and kisses upon his lips and that strange feeling in his chest, equal parts fuzzy joy and trembling excitement. However, with the future a broad and shining road blooming in front of him, Juno knew there was nothing he would rather do than take the first step forward on it, hand in hand with his husband.

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boy. im. yknow. :,)
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!! I usually put my signature comment or ill steal your socks/smooch your mom/play bagpipes in your house threat here, but im gonna skip this time around. happy valentine's day, my gift to you all is 0 threats
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22!!


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